How to use the MX relay/backup service

In the event of your main mail server being unreachable for any reason, we will collect the mail for you and attempt to relay (forward) it on at a later time when it is available again.

Basic Setup

To add your domain to the MX relay service, login to your hosting control panel and click MX relay from the left hand menu.

Enter your domain into the text field and click Add domain. We update our records twice a day on our server (so you should allow at least 12 hours after adding your domain to the control panel for it to use this service).

If you wish to remove a domain at a later date, simply tick the Remove box alongside the domain and then click Remove selected MX services to confirm the removal.

Now that you have added your domain to the control panel, please enter an MX record into your zone file (with a lower server priority than your main mail servers) pointing to mxbackup.gradwell.net. If you have any problems editing your zone file please speak to your hosting provider.

Technical information

The DNS name mxbackup.gradwell.net at present points to the following IPs:

193.111.201.135

193.111.201.133

We also use servers in the following IP blocks:

193.84.87.0/24

194.164.60.0/24

195.74.60.0/23

193.111.200.0/23

79.135.96.0/19

212.11.64.0/19

If you are looking to set up firewall rules based on the IP addresses of our servers you should use the ranges above as they will connect to your primary server.

Please note we may add machines in other network ranges with little or no notice as needed to cope with high server loads. Any changes to these server IP addresses will be posted on our status web site at www.gradwellstatus.com. If you wish to be kept informed of changes you should subscribe to our automated notifications.

Retry Frequency and Timeout

We will attempt to deliver mail for up to seven days while your server is unavailable.

After seven days of failed retry attempts, we will return the message to the sender.